


Changelings

by lemurious



Series: Only A Fairy Tale [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Elves, Ficlet, Fourth Age, Gen, Middle Earth past the Fourth Age, Modern Era, Orcs, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 02:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30031950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemurious/pseuds/lemurious
Summary: A sequel toLullabies. The remnants of old Middle Earth at the edge of the society that had moved on into the next age.
Series: Only A Fairy Tale [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209269
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	Changelings

_Vile superstitions,_ grumbled the priests and threatened to bar the doors to the heavenly kingdom. _No fairies listed in our charts_ , sneered the tax collectors, making sure to cross the woods in broad daylight.

The villagers knew to speak a word of gratitude as they collected the willow bark that was so helpful against childhood fevers, and took turns bringing their offerings of bread and salt to the edge of the forest.

When villagers grew ill beyond the help of willow bark and linden tea, they sometimes asked to be taken to the woods, to be left inside a circle of ancient fir trees. A fairy ring, as such circles were called.

The children, despite the warnings not to go beyond the village gate, would escape into the woods every chance they got, and their parents often pretended not to see the sneaking back inside. They used to do the same, in their own childhood. They knew what their children had seen.

A makeshift dwelling inside a ruined tower, a simple wooden platform high up in the oak tree, a wooden house, similar to those in their own village, hidden among the thorny bushes on the riverbank.

And the ones who gathered in the fairy ring after sunset. A dark cloak, gloved hands, a twisted face, a proud warrior’s bearing, a crown of silver hair. And the light in their faces that made the ruined towers glimmer whole again in a momentary mirage. 

Sharing bread and salt and what knowledge they had of harvest, of history, of healing. Former enemies, all three of them, but the iron fortress was no more, and neither was the golden wood, and new harbors had been built on the shores of the sea.

They knew there were others, some scraping by at the outskirts of their own villages, some seeking the relative comfort of the cities as weavers, bakers, jewel smiths. One had even dared to knock on the door of a scholar of ancient languages to offer his apprenticeship and a poem written in a tongue no one could speak.

To their own surprise, they could not make themselves leave the forest, not yet, not while they could still help the villagers, not when they had forged an unsteady truce that had grown into a brotherhood.

The ill and the broken returned from the fairy ring in a day, or a week, or a year, whole and healed, but not quite the same. Prone to tales of fairy courts and silver harbors, and strange songs of longing with words they could not recall, they would often freeze in the middle of their daily tasks and turn to look towards the West, beyond the forest, beyond the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine it many ways to be still a pre-modern society, removed just far enough that history had become legend and then turned into a fairy tale. 
> 
> Yes, the three are a Noldo, and a Sinda and an Orc. The specifics, as of the scholar's apprentice, are left for future ficlets. :)


End file.
